Human smugglers take young migrants from centre for children to W Europe

Human smugglers run an organised operation to transport unaccompanied minors from a centre for children in Fot near Budapest to western Europe, human resources ministry state secretary Bence Retvari said on Thursday.

Source:Getty/Europress

In the past 12 months, some 3,500 young migrants were provided shelter in Fot after they declared that they were underage, even though they carried no documents to prove this, Retvari told public news channel M1. Next to Denmark, Hungary is a country where underage migrants receive the same services as locals and an increasing number of migrants make use of this possibility, he added.

Accessing wi-fi at the centre they establish contact with their relatives and acquaintances at home who then pay human smugglers to transport the minors further to the west, Retvari said.

Some migrants carried leaflets describing in Urdu language what they should say in order to be accepted in the Fot centre for children, he said. The origin of the leaflets is unknown but they have been possibly made by aid organisations financed by Hungarian-American business magnate George Soros, he added.